


til the stars didn't recognize me

by epiproctan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Universe, Future Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions, Secret Identity, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 02:56:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11152767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiproctan/pseuds/epiproctan
Summary: They had only had two nights together. The universe was determined to keep them apart.Or, a space pirate captain meets a long-mourning Paladin of Voltron.





	til the stars didn't recognize me

**Author's Note:**

> this fic came about by accident. i saw [this beautiful art](http://dreamteden.tumblr.com/post/160125747374/3-months-ago-i-couldnt-stop-thinking-about) and before reading the caption came up with an entire scenario in my head, which you can read [in my tags](http://epiproctan.tumblr.com/post/161038744382/dreamteden-3-months-ago-i-couldnt-stop-thinking). i got an anon saying they’d totally read a fic of it, and i wanted to write them a little drabble but next thing i knew my little drabble was over 10k long. oops. 
> 
> i’d be remiss not to thank lemon and jul for giving me feedback on my first draft of this. you guys are the best <3 
> 
>  
> 
> [a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvvgDC_MNqI)
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT: this fic now has beautiful amazing art that is so faithful to exactly how i saw it in my head??? provided by the incredible and multitalented [moth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingisland/pseuds/flyingisland)! please check it out and also take a look at her amazing writing while you're at it, because she's a flawless goddess of words

They had only had two nights together.

The first, at the Blade of Marmora’s headquarters. After the trials Keith had been bruised and frightened, and Shiro had read between the lines of what he’d seen that day, taken him in his arms that night. Kissed him until he’d forgotten what, exactly, was so terrifyingly bad about having Galra blood. Because in that moment, it was blood that only existed for Shiro.

The second, the night before they set into action the plan that was meant to end the war. Keith had trailed after Shiro to his room, and Shiro had unquestioningly held the door open for him, as though he’d expected him. They made love twice that night, the first time gentle and slow and tender and affectionate before they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms. And then again when they awoke, desperate, clinging, searing each other onto their skin, because they knew everything was going to change that day.

They couldn’t have predicted how. But everything did change that day.

Keith tries his best not to think of these things because he knows that they’re a weakness. They’re a weakness because he’s aware that he’s not at his best when he’s emotional. Shiro told him that himself. Thinking about Shiro makes him emotional, so he doesn’t do that anymore.

It’s been three years since Keith allowed himself that luxury.

Instead of dwelling on that Keith pulls up a map of the system. He has a lot of work to do today. There are things that aren’t going to get done unless he does them, so he might as well get to it. His crew is awaiting orders. They’re patient as they wait for their captain to speak.

“What about this one.” He points to a cluster of ships that have been picked up by their sensors, not too far from here. “Seems like a good shot.”

His first mate leans over his shoulder to get a look. “Are you sure?” she asks. “Looks like there’s a lot of them.”

“Think we can’t take them?” Keith asks, looking sidelong at her.

She’s not the only one in the room who scoffs at that, so they go.

The war is over. In theory. According to every official document that’s been drawn up Emperor Zarkon is long dead and the Galra officially surrendered half a feeb or so ago. Since then every mass weapon has been ordered to be destroyed. Since then every Galra fleet has been asked to stand down.

Does that mean it actually happened? Of course not.

If anything, things out here on the fringes of what was once the Empire seem to have gotten worse. The extreme Galra that were hardline supporters of the Empire ended up out here. Keith and his crew have been cleaning up these parts since long before it even seemed like Voltron could possibly turn the tides of the war, and it’s never been as bad as this.

Keith pilots his ship towards the small cluster of Galra cruisers as his crew around him busies themselves with battle preparations.

When Shiro had disappeared, he’d taken some part of Keith with him. It was something out of Keith’s strength, some part of him that kept him bolstered and centered day after day. When he would sit in the Black Lion’s cockpit a weariness settled into his bones like frost. His fatigue was a constant. His helplessness like inhaling mouthful after mouthful of saltwater. The way Allura’s words and glares felt against his skin, the accompanying passivity of the others, was worse than the feeling of any physical wound he’d ever weathered. There had to be something else, something more, that he could do.

He talked to Kolivan. He talked to Kolivan and no one else. No one could know about the plan. The less people who know, the less secrets can be spilled.

It was the day that they found Shiro that Keith defected to the Galra. Shiro had been unconscious when he returned to the Castle-ship, and slept still when Keith pressed his forehead against the glass of his healing pod and whispered his goodbye. Chest heavy, Keith commandeered a pod and put enough distance between himself and the Castle-ship to hail a Galra commander. He’d come with enough inside information to prove where his new loyalties laid and to make his former teammates’ lives a living hell for a solid few weeks.

It wasn’t long before Keith had found himself face-to-face with a broken-looking Shiro in battle. He had steeled himself that day, against every cell in his body that was screaming in agony, and pressed his blade forward.

It was half a feeb later that Keith buckled under the pressure and the Galra caught on to him. Keith faked his own death, and cast himself adrift in the universe.

He couldn’t go back to Voltron. Not when they all thought he’d left them for the Galra. Not when he’d proved Allura right in the end, even if it was all pretense. He had never had a place in the Blade of Marmora, so that wasn’t an option. He couldn’t live as Keith Kogane anymore. That name was a target throughout the galaxy, spurned by all sides.

If Keith had felt lost before in his life, this was a new level of aimless, empty solitude. No voices called to him from the desert. Nobody waited for him at the end of a space shuttle’s flight plan. Any tether that he had ever had to anything, to anyone, had been severed completely. He had no family, of blood or otherwise, that would take him.

He found himself dipping into his memories for direction. The time he had spent on the Castle-ship had been the best of his life. He had a family there. He could build a new one from scratch.

The Unilu ship wasn’t a family. Keith’s dirt-low position among the crew’s ranks didn’t provide him much more than food and board and an opportunity for growth. But he remembered the outfit that Coran had shoved into his hands during a happier time and embraced his new role thoroughly.

Now Keith is the captain of his own, because if there’s anything he’s good at it’s clawing his way through things. And the war wasn’t going to fight itself. He’d gathered himself a ragtag crew and _did what he could_. Of course during the war this hadn’t been anything more than targeting small supply routes, or catching far-flung Galra ships unawares. These days his goal is to wipe out the last of those who still cling to the Empire.

Maybe Voltron has stopped working by now. Maybe they’d put it to rest once the fighting had officially ended. Keith doesn’t know. Keith pretends he doesn’t care. Keith will never stop.

* * *

 

It’s a couple ships on the fringes. They look pretty innocuous but at some point awhile back the Blade of Marmora unearthed some information about a few remaining druids hiding out on the forgotten edges of what was once an empire. The goal is to track them down. Capture them. Not use force if it’s not needed. But they can always pull out the big guns if it is.

Shiro still drives an enormous black robot lion, after all.

It’s a routine mission, essentially. Drummed into their veins after years of this. There’s very little unrest in the approach, and Lance and Hunk are laughing with each other as they prepare to head to their lions. Shiro ruffles Pidge’s hair and turns to go to the Black Lion’s hangar.

“Look at this.”

Allura’s voice has the power to halt armies, but right now its surprised tone just makes four Paladins pause in their dressing to turn their attention towards the enormous bridge window. Outside there, in the distance, is a scene playing out like a scifi movie in full IMAX. Four Empire-style Galra battle cruisers hang suspended and violent like enormous wasps. Or rather, three do, and a fourth appears to have been recently rent to rubbish, which is now flying outwards from the scene as a lethal cloud of shrapnel.

“Is that one of ours?” asks Shiro, gaze locking instantly onto a small, aerodynamic ship that’s darting around, effortlessly evading ion cannon fire. It seems to pack a punch itself. The lasers it fires from a small canon are burning enormous holes straight through the hulls of the Galra’s cruisers.

Allura runs to the console and types in a few codes. “It’s not in our ally directory, no.” Her frown grows. “In fact, it’s not registered at all. We have no information on this ship.”

“What the hell is it doing?” Lance asks. “Tiny little thing like that, taking on four Galra ships.”

As if to underline his point a lesser cannon fires off one of the Galra ships and knocks a direct hit into the engine of its aggressor. The ship momentarily spins out, but rights and swings around, back with a vengeance.

“We have to go help them,” Shiro says. “An enemy of the Galra Empire is a friend of ours.”

Pidge whoops, and Lance and Hunk aren’t far behind her as they hurry, laughing, towards their hangars. Shiro watches them go, and then turns his attention back momentarily towards the scene before them. The little ship is holding its own. Its flight patterns are technically sound, and laced with a certain boldness that comes with talent and experience. But if there really are druids out here, its crew has no idea what it could be in for.

“Is everything alright, Shiro?” Allura asks, preparing for battle herself.

He snaps his gaze away from the mysterious ship. “Yeah, let’s go.”

By the time he’s seated comfortably in the Black Lion and out in the vacuum of space, he begins to question if they’re really needed here. The little ship has already taken down another Galra cruiser and seems to be making quick work of a third. The fourth is it pursuit of it, but it’s clumsy and unwieldy compared to the agile little ship.

“Do they even need us?” Pidge asks, the green lion stalling in of the corner of Shiro’s eye.

“Yeah, looks like they’ve got this covered,” Lance says. “Why don’t we head back and take a well-deserved nap.”

“Come on, guys,” Shiro replies. “We should at least act as backup. If there really are druids out here, they’re probably going to need it.”

Shiro spurs his lion forward. The closer they draw the more Shiro can really see the fine-tuned skill of the pilot as he dodges and weaves. The ship itself is small, looking more like a cargo ship than anything meant for battle. But its streamlined design makes it aerodynamic and adaptable.

“Should we try hailing it?” Hunk asks.

“No, we might distract them,” Shiro says.

It seems like it’s too late for that, though. The ship suddenly loses control, veering out to the side and only narrowly missing slamming into one of the cruisers. Perhaps the sudden appearance of the Lions of Voltron would come as a shock to even the most seasoned pilots. They should’ve thought this one out more.

“Cover him!” Shiro directs, and the Lions charge forward.

It’s Shiro’s shouted instructions that has Hunk annihilating the ion cannon just before it can take out the little ship, which is now curving off into the distance, as if the pilot has completely removed his hands from the controls. Shiro feels guilty now. That ship probably would’ve been fine on its own, but they’ve clearly given the pilot a bit of a scare.

“Allura,” Shiro calls. “Can you contact that ship? Make sure they’re okay?”

Allura frowns over the comm screen, her fingers working so fast the clicks of the keys make a steady uninterrupted sound. “They’re closed to all communications, it appears.”

The third Galra ship is torn in half and goes spinning off in two directions. Distracted by the sparkling explosions that occur in the process of this, Shiro nearly misses the escape pod that shoots off from the final remaining cruiser, headed in the direction of a nearby planet.

Their new friend doesn’t. The small ship regains control and goes flying after it.

Shiro’s decision is a snap like breaking bone. He turns and pursues.

The surface of the planet is covered in what appears to be orange sand, gathering in dunes and falling away from deep shadowed valleys. As Shiro enters the atmosphere he can see the glint of what must be the surface-bound escape pod, and further back, the unidentified ship slowing for a landing. The Black Lion, too, decelerates as he approaches the surface.

By the time he gets there, he’s already walking into a fight.

Both ships have been disembarked of their passengers. From the escape pod, a fierce ring of maybe four or five Galra hide in the shadows behind the wreckage of their destroyed pod and shoot without aim towards the other ship. From the ship, a varying, scruffy-looking group toting guns huddle behind a wall of mismatched shields and discuss strategy.

Shiro’s so focused on this as he lands that he nearly misses the faceoff that’s occurring maybe a kilometer down the sand. An imprint marks where the escape pod must have first made impact on the ground before skidding to where it rests now. Two figures stand in the shallow bowl, harsh twin suns above casting them in sharp relief.

One has the unmistakable dark fluttering edges of a druid. Shiro can make little out of the other, save for that he’s dressed heavily, crouched into a fighting stance, and armed with a blade.

Whoever this crew is can deal with a few Galra on their own, probably. Shiro has seen plenty of fights against druids before, and they rarely end favorably. His assistance is needed here, not there, and out of his lion too. In the end, the Voltron Lions are only so effective against druids, and he’ll be better with his feet beneath him and his arm charged.

He stumbles out onto the sand, slipping down the sloping edges of the pod imprint. If the landing of his lion didn’t draw their attention, this certainly does. Both figures turn to face him, and he gets a good look at his new ally for the first time. Humanoid, for sure, and clothed baggily in a bizarre outfit complete with a cloak and a mask.

Oh, and he’s also yelling at Shiro over the wind that whips across the sand.

“Get back in your lion!” he shouts, in a voice that nearly eclipses Shiro’s entire awareness with how familiar it is, until suddenly the druid blinks out of their vision.

The man curses, spins in a defensive circle, and then barrels towards Shiro. There’s a split second in which Shiro thinks he’s being attacked, but only until the man tackles him down into the sand. A bolt of dark energy sails over their heads, and Shiro realizes he was being attacked. Just not from the angle he thought.

Shiro tries to regain the wind that was knocked out of him from the fall, but the weight of the man hasn’t moved from on top of him. His face is masked but his lips are parted in a small o, and for the barest hint of an instant Shiro watches his free hand come trembling towards his face, as though hungering for a touch.

But then the man is off him again and scrambling across the sand towards the druid before Shiro can fully register it. Shiro leaps to his feet too, mentally berating himself for his distraction, and backs away from the pair. He knows the drill. If they’re separated, it’s harder for the druid to get behind both of them. They’re at a clear disadvantage on sand, though.

If the man can distract the druid for long enough, Shiro can get in close enough to attack. He knows it’s silly to assume that the other person will have the same plan of attack, and without prior communication it’s impossible to convey that to him, but Shiro hopes that this can go on long enough for him to get a good strike in.

He manages to near the fighting pair. The man has the druid closely engaged, quickly relocating him every time he disappears. He’s clearly skilled with his blade and with fighting in general, showing no trepidation and little weakness. His blade never makes contact with the druid, as it vanishes before he can ever get close, but rather than letting his momentum carry him away or the disappearance catch him off-guard the man keeps his movements efficient and uses inertia to his advantage. Shiro feels as though he can trust him to keep the druid occupied until he can get close enough to make his own attack.

Shiro creeps forward, steels himself, charges up his arm, and waits for the perfect angle. _Not yet. Not yet. Not yet._

_Now._

Shiro bends his knees and leaps.

And is entirely caught off-guard when the man charges forward to meet him. He grabs him around the waist and uses his momentum to swing him around. Out of the way of the druid’s next strike. The druid overcompensates, and stumbles forward. Straight into the blade that the man holds outstretched.

The druid shrieks. Shiro pries himself from the man’s grip to raze a finishing blow, splitting the druid’s mask in two with a slam of the edge of his hand. The thing vanishes from around the blade the other man is still holding, a cloud of dark dust whisked away by the wind.

Shiro pulls in a deep breath. Then two, then three. He can’t get enough oxygen in his lungs, so blinking sand and sunlight out of his eyes, he looks.

His partner is so close they’re practically chest-to-chest, nearly touching as their breaths heave. The other man is staring up at Shiro just as Shiro is staring down at him, though Shiro’s certain his own emotions read far more clearly on his face because it’s not obscured by a mask and a scarf. He can’t even make out the color of the man’s eyes, the mask is so shielding, covering a large portion of his upper face. Beyond that, wild strands of dark hair have escaped a long braid and become matted to his forehead and neck with sweat. Bizarrely, there’s something in the curve of his jawline that makes Shiro want to trace it with the pad of his thumb.

Shiro has no idea what to make of him. Neither of them move.

“Good work,” he finally offers, though his voice falters. “I’m Shiro.”

The man takes half a step back to offer him a hand to shake. Shiro notices he still clutches the blade in his left.

“Akira,” he says, and again something about his voice breaks impenetrable dams within Shiro.

Shiro accepts his handshake, and the man seems unbothered by touching the arm that had just been used to destroy a druid. It’s uncommon that that’s the case in situations like these, and Shiro finds himself, once again, raking his eyes down the length of Akira’s face to try and find a hint of his emotions there, only to be left grasping.

“Who are you guys?” Shiro asks. “What were you doing, taking on Galra ships like that?”

Akira turns and begins to walk away, and for a moment Shiro thinks he’s not planning on answering, but then he tosses the words, “Space pirates,” over his shoulder.

“Space pirates,” Shiro repeats under his breath, before jogging to catch up.

The information that Shiro pries from Akira on their short lion flight back to where his ship has landed is the following: Akira is the captain of this ship; they mainly attack Galra (“Good space pirates,” he laughs dryly); Akira’s grin is roguish and delightful; n-no, Akira is of mixed Galra blood, and Shiro is the first “Earth human” he’s ever met, why would Shiro ask him that; Akira has been out here for a couple years and ever since the war has ended he’s been seeing more Galra around. By the time they land something about his quick, sharp words has Shiro wanting to hear more of them.

His crew has already killed the Galra by the time they get there. It’s not the method Shiro would have used, but sometimes it’s an inescapable fact of war. He allows it without comment as he and Akira step out onto the sand. The lions land around them, and above them in the atmosphere the descending Castle-ship twinkles.

When it touches down, Akira’s ship rests entirely in its shadow, dwarfed by its turrets, but other than to give it a guarded once-over Akira doesn’t spent time ogling it like the rest of his crew. Instead Shiro catches him watching him, so he turns to speak.

“We’d like to have you and your crew over for dinner,” Shiro tells him. “As thanks.”

Shiro can’t make heads or tails of Akira’s expression behind that mask, but he can see the way his shoulders stiffen under the cover of his cloak. “I don’t think that’s—,” he starts to say, but a member of his crew comes over and gives him a playful shove.

“Come on, Captain,” she says. “Let us have a little fun.”

It doesn’t seem to take much to convince him.

“Fine,” he says. “We leave in the morning, though.”

Shiro doesn’t tell him it’s probably the same for the Castle-ship. They can afford to do things like this now, like spend time relaxing and hosting possible allies, rewarding people who have helped their cause. A dinner party with some friendly strangers here and again isn’t unusual these days, and he knows that the others like having this down time now, after being so used to the gogogo of saving the universe. Relaxation is definitely in order. But it’s not as though they don’t have things to take care of, so they’ll head out in the morning too.

But that can wait until tomorrow. For now, he looks around and sees that Lance is already effortlessly entertaining a solid quarter of Akira’s crew. Pidge has cornered what looks like their navigator and is firing away endless questions about their ship’s AI. Hunk is poking and prodding at its hull. And here Allura comes now.

“I trust you have already extended a dinner invitation, Shiro?” she asks.

If Shiro weren’t already watching out of the corner of his eye, he would’ve missed how Akira stiffens at the sound of her voice.

“Yes, and Captain Akira here has accepted,” Shiro replies.

Allura extends a hand towards him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain. I’m Princess Allura of Altea.”

Akira stares at her hand for a long moment before meeting it with his own for a brief shake. He drops it again quickly. When he says, “Nice to meet you too,” it sounds like he found those words in the mud and is cautious to handle them, in case he gets his fingers dirty.

* * *

 

Akira and Shiro are sat together at the head of the table, leader beside leader. To Shiro’s left, Akira’s first mate. To Akira’s right, Pidge. She immediately worms under his stony exterior and has him grinning in moments. Shiro admires. Something in his chest feels airy, excitable. Opportunistic.

When he’s not focusing on his dinner he’s watching Akira. Akira’s eyes are so well-hidden by the mask that it’s difficult to discern where, exactly, he’s looking at any time, but from the jumpy way that he turns his head whenever Shiro looks back at him Shiro’s forced to imagine that he’s watching Shiro just as much. He can’t tell why. There seems to be some sort of steady, deep interest that holds him whenever he looks at any of the Paladins, but his focus strays back to Shiro again and again.

It doesn’t make him uncomfortable. Shiro is well used to stares, as the Black Paladin of Voltron. He just wishes he had some idea of what Akira wanted from him.

“Who pilots your ship, Captain?” Shiro asks over the meal, gauging the group seated at the table. They’re boisterous but well-manner, chatting with the Paladins and the other members aboard the Castle-ship. They’re varied in origin, aliens of kinds Shiro has never seen before amongst their number. They have a general battle-worn air about them, clothes patchy and skin covered in grizzled scars.

“I do,” Akira says, taking a sip of nunvill. He makes a face but chokes it down.

“So all that fancy flying earlier was you, huh?” Shiro asks.

“It wasn’t fancy,” Akira shoots back, though not without the tug of a smile on his lips, and Shiro admits that he’s certainly right. There was nothing “fancy” about it. It had been economical and sure. Bold, but without frills or intricacies.  

“You’re very skilled,” are the words Shiro chooses.

“Learned from the best,” Akira replies in a voice that Shiro can’t decide is wry or not.

There’s a thread there that Shiro wants to grab at, chase after, but before he can Lance abruptly appears at his shoulder.

“Is that braid considered fashionable where you come from?” he asks Akira, not without some antagonism.

Shiro’s eyes widen, and a scolding, “Lance!” slips out before he realizes that Akira’s already in the process of spitting back, “Is being an obnoxious asshole considered fashionable where you come from?”

The comment catches both Shiro and Lance off-guard, but Shiro finds himself bringing his drink to his face to hide his laugh behind it. Lance’s mouth has fallen open in shock and indignance. It’s been awhile since Lance has found himself a suitable partner for cruel banter and something about it harks back to pleasant times. Akira sits back in his seat, the visible area of his face cool and betraying no indication that the exchange had ever happened.

“Lance, why don’t you go check on how Hunk’s doing with the dessert,” Shiro suggests, because as nostalgic as this interaction was Shiro would rather have an irritated Hunk on his hands than an offended space pirate captain.  

“I was just headed there anyway,” Lance huffs and stalks off.

Shiro looks at Akira in his peripherals, and finds that he’s smiling.

* * *

 

“He fits in with us pretty well, doesn’t he?” Pidge says to Shiro as they walk side-by-side back to their rooms.

“Hm?” Shiro’s jolted out of self-reflection. “Who does?”

“Akira.”

Shiro looks down at her, and finds her expression impenetrable. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she says, and stops at her bedroom door. “Goodnight!”

* * *

 

The morning has Shiro gathered with the others on the bridge for a meeting.

“We received word from the residents of this planet late last evening,” Allura explains. “They had heard that Voltron was in the area and would be honored to host us. As a planet so close to the area where Empire-loyal Galra ships still cluster, I think it is important that we leave our best impression on them.”

“So we’re staying?” Lance asks.

Allura nods. “We’re staying. We’ll be here for at least another quintant or two.”

She dives immediately into an explanation of the planet’s culture and customs, but Shiro drifts towards the window. In the glare of the early morning suns he can still see Akira’s ship parked beneath them. From up here the crew that swarms around it is appears miniscule, but there are a quite a few of them thronged around the aft end of the ship.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells the room, and is gone before he realizes the others are throwing him questioning glances.

The sweltering climate causes him to break out into a sweat the moment he steps foot outside the Castle-ship. As he approaches the smaller ship he can make out the figures standing around. One such is Akira himself, edges of his cloak fluttering. He’s standing facing the ship, arms crossed over his chest.

“And we don’t have that part?” is what he’s asking, tone impatient and demanding, as Shiro strolls over.

“Everything okay?” Shiro asks him.

Akira jumps, and spins around to look at him. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Everything’s fine.”

Shiro glances over to where some members of the crew have lifted a panel off the hull of the ship. Everything doesn’t _look_ fine.

“Would you like some help?” Shiro asks.

Akira glances from the exposed innards of the ship to Shiro, and then back again. He sighs.

“You guys wouldn’t happen to have some parts to spare before you take off again, would you?” he finally asks.

Shiro grins. “We have plenty. And we’re actually not leaving quite yet. Have to make friends with the locals first.”

“Well, I guess we’re stuck here too, until we get this fixed.”

“Let us help you,” Shiro finds himself saying easily. “Our yellow paladin is pretty good with ships.”

“Oh, we can fix it on our own,” Akira says quickly. “Just, uh. The parts.”

Shiro finds himself examining Akira again. His clothes are too baggy, too encompassing, to tell what he looks like underneath, but his stance is strong and firm. Remembering yesterday’s fight, Shiro realizes he wouldn’t want to be on the sharp end of this man’s blade. But it doesn’t really seem like he’ll ever have to.

“Alright, come with me,” Shiro invites. “You can take a look at what we have.”

Akira takes a step, and then two after him, but even under his mask his perplexity is clear. “Are you sure you wanna be inviting a complete stranger onto your ship?”

It’s a good point. Shiro remembers all too well their early days in space, of being too trusting and too naïve. Back then they’d all been novices at this whole “war” thing, and their security systems hadn’t been particularly functional. The concern is legitimate, and probably something that, as a pirate captain, Akira himself thinks about on a regular basis. But Shiro knows the castle now. He knows the updates that Pidge and Coran have worked hard on. He knows exactly how defensible it is from the inside and out. And he knows how to deal with a threat.

And he trusts Akira.

“Are you planning on misbehaving?” Shiro fires back, smile on his face to let him know he’s joking.

Akira seems to shake the concern off his features, and strides past Shiro in the direction of the Castle. “Well, I am a space pirate.”

Shiro’s grin widens, and he jogs to catch up to the cloak that’s snapping in the wind before him. “I’m giving you permission. Plunder away.”

Three members of Akira’s crew come along, and Shiro manages to get Hunk excused from the briefing, much to Allura’s irritation. They’re not scheduled to meet this planet’s governing body until the afternoon, so Shiro figures they have the time to head to the storage rooms and help these guys out. It turns out he and Akira don’t know much about fixing up battleships, though, so together they lean against the wall and watch as Hunk and Akira’s crew members dig through parts.

He’s easy to talk to, Akira. Shiro isn’t the kind of person who has difficulty talking to people, necessarily, but he can appreciate when someone _clicks_. It’s been awhile since interacting with an alien hasn’t felt like an immovable weight on his shoulders. As the Black Paladin of Voltron he’s expected to provide a glistening example of perfect diplomacy, but in reality Shiro’s just a 20-something with more responsibility than he ever asked for. That’s fine. For the good of the universe, that’s fine. But meeting someone new without feeling the pressure of having to be a specific something for them is fun, and he can’t imagine that he’d feel this way around the other members of Akira’s crew.

It’s comfortable.

They don’t really talk about much. They talk, but the contents of their words aren’t deep. Akira talks about pirating life in this system, but he seems unwilling to part with any sort of personal information. Shiro talks about Voltron, sparingly. They somehow find things to relate on, though. The pressures of leading. The joys of piloting. A love for the stars, and freedom.

“We have a few diplomacy meetings here this afternoon,” Shiro offers him as they help carry parts back to his ship. “But if you haven’t left yet, would you be interested in coming to dinner again later tonight?”

The question disarms Akira. Shiro can see it in the way he reshuffles his armful of tubing. Somehow, his gestures are easy to read despite his obscured face and presumably alien upbringing.

“If we haven’t left yet,” he agrees, but somehow Shiro knows that he’ll see him there.

Indeed, Akira does appear back in the dining room of the ship that evening, with a few of his crew in tow. When Shiro asks him how the repairs are going he gives an opaque shrug and asks Shiro how the diplomacy is going. Teasing, Shiro returns his gesture and watches the little smile bloom on his lips.

Shiro watches him carefully. Watches how he interacts with him, and the others. There’s something surprisingly soft about him, about the way he talks to Shiro and the way he smiles, but Shiro gets the feeling he isn’t supposed to know that when he witnesses Akira nearly clock Lance in the face (deservedly, of course). He also observes Akira making hasty exits when Allura approaches him not once but twice. It doesn’t come off as impolite, or at least not to Shiro. Instead Akira just seems a little lost. Shiro can’t blame him. Allura is intimidating.

They end up sitting together again after dinner, chatting even after the rest of Akira’s crew has left. When Akira finally excuses himself, he puts a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. Its warmth somehow spreads through Shiro’s veins.  

It’s not the last time he sees Akira, either. Voltron has another day of drawing up official documents for the bureaucracy-adoring citizens of the planet the next day, and when he peeks out a window in the morning it looks like Hunk is already down by Akira’s ship, helping the crew puzzle out what’s happening in its engines.

“It’s really busted up,” Hunk tells Shiro when Shiro comes down himself.

“All that risky flying,” Shiro says with a pointed look at Akira. Akira looks in the other direction and crosses his arms, but he can’t hide the curl of his mouth. Shiro smiles himself, and wonders if maybe he has a type.

They’re still there that night. Akira mumbles apologies for trespassing on their kindness again as he comes into the dining room and sits down right beside Shiro’s usual chair. Shiro reassures him that it’s fine while silently noting that it’s not the same chair Akira had sat in the past two nights. The motion seems so intrinsic on him that he doesn’t bring it up. It’s only much later that Shiro recalls who used to sit there, before it went unused for a couple of feebs.

Over dinner Hunk tells them that the repairs should be done by tomorrow. Allura mentions that their negotiations will be coming to a close as well. Everyone appears pleased by this news, which is somehow the opposite of the feeling that sinks into Shiro’s gut.

* * *

 

Shiro is not lacking for love in his life. He’s not lonely. He’s always surrounded by his family. The Paladins, and Allura and Coran, and the Holts, the various other inhabitants of the Castle-ship they’ve picked up along the way, the allies they’ve made…Shiro has no _time_ to feel lonely.

But the fact of the matter is that he had once known someone whose absence he feels the same way the Earth might feel without a moon. Sure, it keeps orbiting the sun. Sure, things even out, adjust, and reach equilibrium. The Earth isn’t lonely without its moon. But it is something different. Its tides are no longer pulled and its weather patterns change. There’s nothing there to illuminate the night sky but wavering pinpricks of distant light.

Shiro is balanced. Shiro has reached equilibrium. But his nighttime sky is dark now.

If only he had tried a little harder, maybe things wouldn’t have worked out the way they did. He lays awake at night sometimes thinking of what he could have done to change what had happened. But in the end he can’t change the past. It happened. Shiro lost something precious to him, and can never get it back.

* * *

 

“That’s pretty unusual, you know.”

Shiro’s voice echoes too loud around the vast hangar, but it’s worth it for the way Akira’s entire body jolts. He snatches his hand back from where it was pressed against the nose of the Red Lion, her form alert and drawn forward towards him.

“She doesn’t like most people,” Shiro goes on. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her react to a stranger like this.”

Akira takes several steps backwards, and as if in response the Red Lion settles back onto her haunches, the glow in her eyes going dark. It’s only then that Akira turns towards Shiro. The only part of his face that Shiro can see are his lips, slightly parted, like something is on the tip of his tongue but the sounds won’t work their way up his throat.

“How did you even get in here?” Shiro asks conversationally. Last time he checked these tunnels were off-limits to everyone except the paladins themselves. It’s true that they’d let down security quite a bit since the war had ended, but he wasn’t foolish enough to believe that ending the empire truly rid the universe of those who thirsted after Voltron’s power. For someone to even approach a lion was pretty dangerous.

Then again, if Red didn’t want Akira here, he wouldn’t be here, as plain as that.

Either way, Shiro’s going to have to ask Coran to reconfigure the security settings.

“You said it was okay to explore the castle,” Akira says, in a tone that alludes to self-defense.

“I didn’t think you’d make it all the way out here, though,” Shiro says, and lets a smile play along his lips. “I guess you’re not a pirate captain for nothing.”

“I didn’t break in, if that’s what you’re saying.” Akira sounds offended at the very idea. He must be able to tell that Shiro holds no anger in him, though, from the way he stands his ground as Shiro comes closer.

Instead he watches carefully as Shiro goes to one of the Red Lion’s paws and hoists himself up onto it. He sits there and pats the spot next to him, his flesh and blood hand making a dull sound against the metal of her foot. For a long moment Akira doesn’t move, just looks at the empty space beside Shiro, and then, finally, reluctantly, moves towards him. He sits as far away as he possibly can, but his body seems to angle itself, almost instinctively, towards Shiro, like a plant unfurling towards the sun.

Shiro can’t help the small laugh that escapes under his breath.

“What,” Akira snaps, in a way that makes Shiro realize he thinks he’s being laughed at.

“Nothing,” Shiro says. “You just remind me of someone I used to know.”

Akira grows immediately still and quiet at that, like the breath itself has frozen in his lungs. Shiro pushes on.

“The old Red Paladin, actually. He came from Earth with us.”

If Akira has begun breathing again, he gives no sign of it, but from the way he’s leaning towards Shiro, Shiro can tell he’s fixated on every word.

“What happened to him?” Akira asks, in a quiet voice.

Shiro’s smile tightens. It happens without his meaning to. It doesn’t get easier, this conversation, not after all its iterations, not after the years. His biggest loss. His biggest regret.

But it’s okay to share it with a stranger, he supposes. He can answer this much at least.

“He died.” Shiro tries to keep his voice even, to keep his shoulders steady as he gives a shrug.

Akira inhales audibly, and holds it. On the exhale, he breathes, “That uh—that’s…I'm sorry.”

Something about this tangles Shiro’s feelings to a hard knot inside his throat. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know how this near-stranger has the power to manipulate Shiro’s insides like this. Why seeing him sends his heart into a flurry, buoys his stomach. Why hearing him say something like that can put a burn at the back of his eyes.

It probably has everything to do with what he just told him. It’s probably because he reminds him of Keith.

Shiro coughs, hiding his expression behind his fist.

“It’s fine,” he forces out. “I’m sorry I brought that up. We can talk about happier things.”

No happier things immediately make themselves notable, so they end up sitting in silence. It’s fine. Shiro doesn’t feel a pressing need to fill it. But he does wish he didn’t have to be alone with his remorse.

Eventually, Akira asks, “Can I ask you a question?”

Shiro can look at him for the first time in a few moments, and finds himself distracted by the way a dark lock of hair has fallen free from his braid, how it curls over one ear. The skin of his cheeks is smooth and fair. Despite his earlier claims, Akira certainly looks mostly human.

“Um, sure,” Shiro says, momentarily dizzied.

“Tell me about the end of the war,” Akira says, entirely more demand than question. The tone brings some of Shiro’s presence back. “The final battle. What happened?”

“I thought everyone knew the story,” Shiro says, tone dry. “The bravery of the Black Paladin and all that.”

Akira shifts closer, sliding his body towards Shiro, leaning in on one hand. “I want to hear it from you.”

“It wasn’t that impressive,” Shiro admits. “Pidge did most of the work.”

Akira nods as if he’d figured that all along, but he’s still sitting leaned towards Shiro. He looks like he’s straining a little bit, like there’s some invisible force holding him back, despite the fact that he wants to scoot closer again. If he leans any further he might topple over, and this mental image loosens Shiro.

So much so that he unthinkingly reaches out, fingers outstretched towards that stray strand of dark hair.

Akira wrenches back. The lion growls.

Shiro pulls back just as fast. He can feel heat climbing into his cheeks as he rests both palms on the cool metal surface of the lion. He looks down.

“I’m sorry, that was—”

“No,” Akira is quick to cut in. “You’re fine. Keep...keep telling your story.”

Shiro takes a shaky deep breath, and peeks up through his eyelashes. Akira is still turned towards him, but leaning back now, spine straight. Doesn’t want to be touched. Got it.

“Well, it wasn’t really anything special,” Shiro tries again, all for the way he can watch Akira’s posture relax as he speaks. It does. As Shiro continues telling the story, Akira’s body seems to give in to some greater force in bits and pieces. It bows under it, his muscles relaxing, his hands unclenching, his spine unraveling. He shifts closer, seemingly unaware, like he’s magnetically drawn to the sound of Shiro’s voice. His eyes never leave Shiro’s face.

Shiro looks at him back. Or tries to. He feels a little warm under his gaze so his eyes fall sometimes to his hands clasped in his lap, or the nicks on the edges of the metal claws beneath him. But his gaze is pulled back up again and again, over the slope of Akira’s throat under his loosened scarf, the curve of his chin, the pale ear that sticks out from his dark hair. When Akira responds as the conversation flows, Shiro’s attention is pulled to his lips, chapped and bitten pink.

Shiro is human.

Shiro is human, and he’s a well-adjusted enough one to be honest with himself. He knows when he finds something appealing. The colors of a voice. The efficiency of a movement. The fall of soft, dark hair. It’s been a long time since he’s felt anything approaching desire. So much so that he had begun to wonder if he lost the capacity. But it’s not something that’s ever concerned him. He’s perfectly content keeping things like bodily needs perfunctory and impersonal. He doesn’t have the kind of drive that stirs Lance to pursue companionship. He rarely feels inclined to look at others in that way.

But he knows when he does. He’s felt it before. It’s not unfamiliar. It’s just rare.

Even rarer is being in a situation where he can’t foresee any negative consequences of acting on such feelings. He’s not saving the universe anymore, or if he is, it’s on a much smaller scale. There is nothing hanging in the balance here except for a fleeting personal relationship.

Akira’s companionship, over the handful of days that he’s known him, has been enthralling. Shiro won’t pretend he thinks something formed over a few quintants can be anything more than interest, anything even in the same family as love, but he can certainly acknowledge at least the physicality of his attraction. In another life, maybe, Shiro would have seen this as a spark, a chance. But in the enormity of the universe what’s the true probability of the leader of Voltron successfully wooing the captain of a space pirate ship on the outskirts of the universe?

He might as well have what he can.

It’s been years since Shiro has felt like this. Three, to be specific. Three tired, weary, agonizing years.

When he shifts closer, testing the waters, Akira doesn’t retreat. He tilts his head upwards to look at him instead. It’s not an invitation, not yet, but it is a favorable response. They’ve both fallen silent again, but easily, like the words they had been speaking before aren’t necessary anymore in the quiet space between them. This time when Shiro raises his hand, his left one, he’s sure to avoid his face, and instead lets it rest on the junction of Akira’s neck and shoulder. He can feel strength there.

Akira cranes his neck, and suddenly they’re sharing air. Shiro’s eyes shut instinctively, and his thumb glides once along Akira’s smooth jawline. Their noses brush.

Their lips meet.

It’s not anything deep or time-consuming. It’s surprisingly calm and gentle for what Shiro would have otherwise imagined. He knows what hookups and one night stands are supposed to be like, and he wouldn’t have guessed that a kiss in such a situation could feel so intimate and fulfilling. Especially when it’s nothing but a fleeting, closed-mouth thing.

He pulls back to center himself and finds Akira’s hand perched on his knee, and the other one like a support on his shoulder. It gives him the confidence to speak.

“I don’t...uh…,” Shiro starts, and stumbles. “I don’t usually do this. Ever, really. But it’s our last night together, and I like you. A lot. Would you be interested in going somewhere private?”

Akira opens his mouth, and closes it again, and then opens it once more. For a second Shiro thinks he’s absolutely killed the moment, demolished it completely like he’d taken his right arm to it glowing purple, but suddenly Akira grabs him by the hand and yanks him up. Then, they’re hurrying.

“Where are we going?” Shiro asks, dizzy, feeling like he’s caught in a tornado that’s made up of the winds in Akira’s snapping cloak and the pressure of his hand. “I have a room here. On the ship.”

Akira, heedless, doesn’t slow his pace. “We’re going back to my ship.” His tone leaves no room for argument, so Shiro lets it happen.

Some of Akira’s crew loiter outside the entrance to his ship in the early dusk light. They make as if to greet him but they must see something in his posture, in his gait, in the way that Shiro has to take long strides to make it look like he’s walking at Akira’s side and not being dragged along. Instead they scatter, turn away, and Shiro has to wonder if they haven’t seen this before. Something about that thought burns at his gut.

The inside of Akira’s ship is clean. Tidy. The actual machinery doesn’t appear to be as complex as what Shiro’s used to in the castle but every inch is well-kept. He lets himself be led through twisting hallways and around corners and up stairs until Akira stops before a door. He enters in a code, and it jerks open.

For a pirate captain’s berth, it’s modest. It’s not big or gaudily-adorned. The only thing that captures Shiro’s attention right away is the wide wraparound window that gives a breathtaking view of the surrounding landscape, swathed in gold by the setting sun. he doesn’t have the time to focus on that, because suddenly Akira is at his mouth again with no warning at all.

But it’s not as though Shiro is complaining. Kissing Akira is a long-forgotten taste. This was a pleasurable pastime for him once, he remembers. Kissing. He’s never really had the opportunity to partake in it much, or very often. In the Garrison, sure, with flings here and there, but there was only one person that he had truly wanted to kiss back then and he’d had no way of knowing if he’d wanted to kiss him back. Obviously not while he was on the Kerberos mission, and he’d had far more to worry about during his time with the Galra and during his time as the leader of Voltron. Actually, he doesn’t think he’s kissed anyone since—

It’s not the time to think about that. He’s enjoying himself now. He’s allowed to have this. He lets himself focus on the pressure of lips against each other. The way Akira sucks his tongue into his mouth, like he’s dying of dehydration and only Shiro can quench his thirst. The huff of his breath into Shiro’s mouth when Shiro puts one hand on his hip to steer him closer. The feel of the skin of his neck under Shiro’s other palm.

They’re still standing in the middle of the room, Akira’s teeth tugging at Shiro’s bottom lip until he sighs. But then it’s his clothes he’s tugging at, fingers of both hands curling in his belt loops to pull him towards the bed. They don’t break apart even as Akira yanks him in, their bodies pressed against each other as they move. Akira pulls, Shiro chases, and next thing Shiro knows Akira is falling back against the bed and Shiro is propped up over him.

It’s a good place to be, Shiro decides in an instant. It’s been long, so long, since he’s had a body under him, and it’s one like Akira’s that beckons to him more than a field of fresh flowers after breathing in only the recycled air on the ship, more than a soft mattress after a long day. Shiro knows immediately that he wants to strip every article of clothing from this man’s body, that he wants to run his tongue over all his lines and his curves.

For the first time in a long time Shiro’s blood rushes for something more than fear, for something more than victory. For the first time in a long time Shiro feels desire. Passion. He shuts his eyes for a moment and basks in it, but Akira doesn’t allow him to for long. He seems to have the same idea about the clothes, because he’s pulling Shiro’s off with eager jerky motions.

“Hey,” Shiro laughs. “We have time for that.”

But he realizes he’s fumbling, pulling, hurrying just as much, dragging Akira’s clothes away from his body with a ferocity that surprises himself.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” grumbles Akira, smirking up at him. “Patience yields focus.”

Shiro starts, but his mind is wiped clean when Akira gets his shirt up over his head and runs his now-bare hands over the expanse of Shiro’s chest. It’s a shock for a moment, overcoming any others he may have just endured. The scars which have become so commonplace to him might appear hideous to others. It isn’t something he’s had to think about until he’s here in the moment.

But Akira barely looks at them. He drags his fingertips over the well-defined muscle, and _moans_.

“God, Shiro,” he breathes, and Shiro reboots. Sparks into action. Akira’s shirt goes, and then his pants. Shiro’s pants have disappeared somewhere at some point too. All that’s left is the two of them, chests already heaving, hands wandering, lips meeting again and again, thin fabric of underwear the only thing keeping a pair of rapidly hardening cocks apart.

And, oh yeah. There’s that mask.

Shiro takes a deep breath. Sits up a little bit, heart leaping as Akira tries to chase after him with his mouth. But Shiro pushes him back down from the shoulders, and sits astride his hips, looking down at him.

He’s not without his scars either. There are a few crisscrossing his chest. A newer-looking one as a notch on his hipbone. Something broad and painful-looking cutting down his right shoulder. But Shiro’s attention doesn’t linger at any of these. It instead goes straight to his face.

Shiro can’t ignore that he has no idea what this man looks like.

Shiro wants to see his eyes.

He reaches, with both hands, with broad, gentle movements, predictable and slow. He puts both thumbs against his cheekbones first, and strokes gently across them, once, twice.

Akira tenses under him, seems to grow smaller, a completely different being from the person who was just clawing his clothes off. Shiro pets back the wild locks of his dark hair from his forehead, and then lets his fingers drift down.

Akira cringes, but he hasn’t yet moved to stop him. Shiro can feel his hands shaking where they rest on his thighs. His head is turned away, dark hair splayed around around him on the pillow. Whatever’s behind that mask, Shiro is certain it can’t be anything short of glorious.

“It’s okay,” Shiro tells him quietly. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

Akira doesn’t respond with anything beyond an audible swallow.

Shiro lets his fingers slide beneath the edges of the mask, and lifts it.

Purple. His eyes are purple. They’re the most entrancing purple Shiro has ever seen. Even averting his eyes, even doing his best to disappear into the pillow beneath his head, Shiro has never in his travels throughout all the solar systems and the galaxies seen anything more stunning, more breathtaking, than that pair of eyes.

A pair of eyes that he thought he would never see again.

The realization starts like something igniting in the pit of his stomach. A spark of a match, burning away all the oxygen in his lungs, leaving them a collapsed vacuum. Then, suddenly, he combusts. The dried kindling of his bones and his flesh sears to life in one intense, heart-stopping ignition.

He chokes past the dryness of his mouth, the burning of his throat.

“Keith?”

* * *

 

Keith’s frozen.

It happened, it happened, _it happened_ , and he did nothing to stop it, and now Shiro knows, and now his entire world is going to come collapsing in on itself, and now Shiro is sitting over him, also frozen, Keith’s name a whisper on his tongue.

He had known better. He knew better than to kiss Shiro in the Red Lion’s hangar. He knew better than to pull Shiro back to his room with him. He knew better than to spend time with Shiro in the first place. To agree to come to dinner that first night on this planet. To not hightail it out of there the moment he saw the Lions of Voltron speeding towards his ship in battle a few days ago.

He had let an ache in his heart dictate his actions and now he’s going to pay for it.

“I’ll leave,” he rasps out. “Get off me. I’ll leave the planet.”

Because this Shiro, the Shiro who hovers over him with one hand on either side of his head, must despise him. The last time they’d seen each other was on the battlefield, weapons at each other’s chests. Shiro thinks Keith betrayed Voltron. Shiro thinks Keith betrayed _him_. How could he ever hold anything but hatred in his heart for Keith?

Shiro doesn’t move.

Something wet lands on Keith’s shoulder, and when he looks up, he finds Shiro’s eyes full and glassy. Tear tracks lead down across his scar, and saltwater gathers at the end of his nose.

“Keith,” Shiro says again, voice raw and torn viciously open. “Keith.”

Shiro raises his organic hand and presses it to the side of Keith’s face. It’s shaking so violently that Keith can’t help but put his own hand over it, despite himself. Despite how he knows that Shiro must hate him. How the last time Shiro looked into his eyes, before all this, Shiro had stared at him with the utmost hurt and betrayal clear in the lines of his face.

“I have to go,” Keith tries again, but that’s when Shiro buries his face in the crook of Keith’s neck and lets out a jagged sob.

This breaks something open. Keith absently raises his hands. One instinctively threads into Shiro’s hair, and pets. The other goes around his back. It’s where he fits. It’s where he belongs.

Where he used to, at least. Keith shuts his eyes.

“Shiro,” he says, and it’s strained with the emotion that’s gathered as a lump in his throat.

Shiro shudders into silence all at once, and it jars Keith so much that he grabs him by the chin and prods his face up to look at him with red-rimmed eyes. They stare at each other. Tears run freely down Shiro’s face, and Keith’s own eyes are watering, overflowing. He bites down on his lip to bury a violent tremor in his lungs.

“You died, Keith.” Shiro seems incapable of more than a whisper. “They killed you. You’re dead.”

“No, I….” Keith takes a stuttering breath. “I faked it, Shiro. They caught on to me, and I had nowhere to go, I faked it—I—”

Shiro’s eyes widen as his thumb ghosts over Keith’s cheek. He slides it through the wetness under Keith’s eyelashes, and then drags it down to comb through the hair that’s fallen out of Keith’s braid. He trails his fingertips down the side of Keith’s neck, and then lets them land on the scar on his shoulder. He traces it down until it rests in the center of Keith’s chest, where Keith can feel its weight with every inhale and exhale.

“You’re not dead,” Shiro says.

“I’m not dead,” Keith says.

Shiro inhales shakily. Keith can feel his own breath as an unsteady rattle inside his ribcage. He doesn’t know why Shiro hasn’t rejected him yet. Why Shiro’s still holding him gently like he didn’t turn his back on his friends. On his family.

“Keith,” is all Shiro says again.

Keith brings a hand up to run the length of Shiro’s jaw, and Shiro allows it, though shakily. He closes his eyes when Keith reaches his neck, as though basking in the touch.

“You don’t hate me,” Keith says, half as a question, half as a realization.

Shiro’s fingers twitch against Keith’s chest. “Keith,” he rumbles, low in his throat. “Keith, I could never hate you.”

He then puts his arms around Keith’s shoulders and shifts them onto their sides. From here he draws Keith in to his chest, and holds him. The arms around Keith are constricting, tight, but with every second they hold him the shivers that pass up Keith’s spine, the involuntary wracking of his lungs seems to roll to a stop. Keith inhales deeply, taking in the scent that’s so ingrained in him that he can close his eyes and feel like he’s back on the Castle-ship, nestled into the embrace of someone who would always love him. Shiro’s warmth is enveloping, seems to slow the very blood in Keith’s veins down from a panicked roar. Keith feels like a comet settling into its permanent orbit.

He realizes that Shiro’s face is buried against his hair, breathing him in, hands clutched tight against his back.

“Shiro,” Keith says, trying to push away, but Shiro is adamant in his hold. “Shiro, wait.”

“Keith,” Shiro asks, and his voice is still so rough and raw and disbelieving that Keith’s chest aches.

“Why,” Keith asks, grabbing onto Shiro’s biceps in an attempt to untangle himself, and failing that, raising his head to look Shiro in the eye. Shiro’s expression when their eyes meet stirs something painful in Keith’s chest. “Why don’t you hate me?”

Shiro brushes a strand of hair behind Keith’s ear with a tremble of his fingers and looks at him like he’s trying to puzzle out where his seams are. “I'm definitely mad, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Icy cold plunges over Keith. “Mad?”

“Furious,” Shiro says, and his voice cracks, and Keith realizes there are still tears at the corners of his eyes despite the smile that’s taking over his lips. “For so many reasons. Mostly, that you’ve been alive all this time and you didn’t tell me.”

“Shiro,” Keith says, because that’s the only word that his tongue seems capable of forming anymore.

Shiro puts his thumb against Keith’s lips anyway, instantly quieting him, as if he was going to say anything more.

“That’s not all,” he continues, and the tears are flowing freely again, but through it he’s grinning, he’s grinning so wide that Keith can only imagine that his cheeks ache. “For lying to me these past few days. And also, for not coming back to us.”

Keith’s eyelashes feel wet and stick together when he blinks. “How could I?” he asks against the pad of Shiro’s thumb. “I didn’t have a choice. You all thought I betrayed you.”

Shiro shakes his head. “Kolivan told us. After you died, he told us what you’d done for us.”

The words jolt through Keith’s body like a shock of lightning, and he chokes on it, on the pure physicality that that sentence brought to him.

“You knew?” he rasps.

“We knew,” Shiro says. “And we thought you’d died for it. They killed you, Keith. They killed you and—.” Shiro is interrupted by something that’s half a sob, half a laugh, a pure outpour of emotion. “And you’re here with me right now again somehow. _Keith_.”

Keith doesn’t blame him for the way his arms tighten around him, because his own tears have started again. He presses his face into Shiro’s collarbone and lets himself exist there.

“I didn’t know,” he tells Shiro. “I thought you all hated me.”

When Shiro pulls Keith’s face up to look him in the eye, Keith feels his gaze as a burning heat all over his skin. “I’ll say it again,” Shiro says, eyes sparkling with tears, with joy. “I could never hate you, Keith.” He laughs. “Hell, I had just about fallen in love with you all over again these past few days.”

Something seizes up in the muscles in Keith’s chest, and it’s a moment before his vital functions return to him.

“I didn’t mean to meet you again,” Keith admits.

“I think the universe is determined to keep bringing us back together,” Shiro replies.

Keith has nothing else to say to these words than to silently thank whatever forces dictate the celestial movements that somehow bring Shiro back to him again, and again, and again. He curls himself against Shiro’s body and for the first time lets himself truly relax into Shiro’s arms. He feels the touch of a smile on his lips before he’s even aware of it happening, and before he can do it himself, Shiro is wiping away his tears. More come to take their place, but Shiro seems content to touch his face over and over, as if to confirm that the body pressed against him is alive and real.

“We have to tell the others,” Shiro murmurs.

“Tomorrow,” Keith says, flushed with something like fluttering joy. Hunk, Pidge. Lance, Allura, and Coran. They don’t hate him, probably. They know what he did for them. They’ll be happy to learn that he’s not dead. But for now,

For now he has Shiro in his bed again. They’d only ever had two nights together, despite the way Keith had felt about him for as long as he had known him. They’re about to have their third.

“Tomorrow,” Shiro agrees, and leans in to replace his fingertips on Keith’s cheek with his lips.

He kisses over Keith’s cheekbone. Keith’s eyebrow. Keith’s eyelids and down his nose. And then he pauses for a breath’s length, hovering over Keith’s mouth, before tenderly pressing against it.

They had just been kissing a little while ago, but this is different. The parching thirst Keith had felt earlier, the desperation to have Shiro just this one time, this _one_ time more, has given way to a ferocious want that’s gentle in its manifestation. Earlier he had believed that this was it. This was the last time he would ever have the opportunity to know Shiro. But now the secret fantasy unfolds in his mind: from today forward, every night spent together with Shiro, spent with his kisses and the warmth of his arms and the reassurances that he would never leave and even if he did he would always, _always_ , come back for Keith.

Shiro pulls away between leisurely kisses to say, “You brought me here so you could escape quickly if I found out, didn’t you.”

“Yeah,” says Keith, chasing back after him. He’s waited too goddamn long to kiss Shiro like this to not be doing it right now.

“Dammit, Keith,” Shiro growls, laughing, opening his mouth up to let Keith taste him.

“Thanks for not letting me,” Keith says when he comes up for air, and rolls Shiro underneath him.

Shiro sighs into his mouth, and Keith lets his hands splay open and rove over every inch of Shiro’s skin he possibly can. Shiro seems to have the same thing in mind, his fingers petting down Keith’s ribcage, tracing up his spine, smoothing over his shoulders, gripping down his arms. He finally settles for letting Keith’s hair loose and slipping his fingers through it before taking a handful of it is his grip and using the leverage to deepen the kiss.

Keith feels himself growing aroused again. All the interest that has dissipated the moment Shiro had reached for his mask comes back in full force, in _double_ the force. Shiro’s the same, as Keith can feel beneath him, but there’s still nothing hurried about his movements. They’re going to take their time. They’re going to appreciate each other like they haven’t had the chance to in years.

This means they ignore it for now. The want of Shiro sits like lead in Keith’s lower body but he’s happy to continue kissing him lazily, feeling the slide of his tongue and the warmth of his palms.

“I missed you,” Shiro tells him as he rubs gentle circles on Keith’s lower back, dipping closer and closer to the curve of his ass each time.

“I missed you too,” Keith mumbles against his jaw, where he’s busy rememorizing the way its strong line feels on his lips.

In a little bit Shiro draws Keith up, flips him around, presses him back against the headboard. Keith rubs his fingers against the bristle of hair on the back of Shiro’s head as Shiro kisses down his body, spending time nosing against every unfamiliar scar, until he’s reached the junction of Keith’s legs. He licks up the length of Keith’s cock, and then kisses its head before turning his eyes upwards and asking if Keith has any lube.

Oh, does he. Shiro laughs at the hurry Keith is suddenly in to get the bottle out of his bedside drawer and into Shiro’s hands.

Shiro sucks him off while he fingers him. Keith has never been made to see stars so fast and the feeling of a part of Shiro reaching inside of him is heady and thrilling. He slides his fingers through the thick of Shiro’s bangs, traces a thumb against the curve of his ear, and bites down on his moans as Shiro never looks away from his face, always watching with a kind of hungry appreciation.

“Shiro, Shiro, stop,” Keith begs. “I want you inside of me.”

Shiro is happy to comply. He pulls off, slips his fingers out, and rehandles Keith until he’s laid out underneath him. Keith can’t think of anywhere else in the universe that he would rather be at any given time.

The press inside is slow. It doesn’t have to be. Keith is well-prepared and Shiro is slick where he spreads him open. But Shiro seems far too interested in kissing Keith breathless and treating every inch of him like it’s a fascinating new wonder to be faster about it.

“Hurry, Shiro,” Keith whines, but Shiro grins and kisses him again, deep and deliberate.

Once he’s fully inside they make eye contact and both take a breath. Keith’s eyes are full of tears again, but Shiro inside of him is everything he’s been missing from his life since the day Shiro vanished. He feels complete in a way he didn’t think he could ever achieve. He closes his eyes and pulls Shiro closer, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and pressing their foreheads together.

“Move,” Keith says, so Shiro does.

Shiro’s pace is unhurried and purposeful. Keith can’t help but admire Shiro’s strength. The crushing way he holds him, the surety with which his hips snap forward. Keith feels each thrust like an overwhelming current, up his spine and spreading through all his nerves. He pants and moans into Shiro’s neck as the pleasure renders him mindless. His legs wrap around Shiro, urging him closer, closer. His toes curl and he shouts and babbles Shiro’s name when Shiro touches him. He sinks his nails into Shiro’s back in an effort to anchor himself, but every moment is unbearably, unbelievably good and he is drifting away into space.

Shiro says his name, low in his ear, and Keith’s head tosses back, his eyes clench shut, his mouth falls open around Shiro’s name. Moaning as Keith tightens around him, Shiro helps Keith through his orgasm, and then falls headlong into his own. Keith gets to watch, chest heaving, mind blanking, as Shiro’s face contorts in pleasure. Deep inside of him, Keith is filled with wet warmth.

Shiro laughs, hoarse and raspy, as he slides out, and grinning he repositions them again on their sides. He holds Keith so tightly Keith’s scared of fractured bones. But he smiles too, warm against Shiro’s shoulder, and ignores the stickiness between them so he can luxuriate in this afterglow of afterglows, thrilled and satisfied and warm and comfortable.

They’re content to lay there in silence until Keith’s heartbeat slows, and then Shiro uses a discarded towel he finds on the dresser to wipe Keith down gently. Keith, wholly unused to this treatment, sprawls and shuts his eyes. Shiro settles in next to him again, and Keith curls against him. In the soft light of the planet’s rising moons, Keith alternates between kissing him and admiring his features.

“Don’t do that again,” Shiro says, looking at Keith so fondly Keith thinks the fire that lives in his chest might consume him whole.

“Don’t leave me again,” Keith replies.

“I won’t,” Shiro promises.

* * *

 

Keith leaves his ship to his first mate. “I’m going back home,” he tells her, and exits the ship with his hand in Shiro’s.

Even though Shiro tells everyone to sit down before Keith comes into the room, Hunk still faints. Pidge, who claims to have known the entire time, fans him while Lance punches Keith hard in the shoulder. He ends up crying too.

There’s a long, quiet talk with Allura that evening, and a longer, quieter night of sitting alone in Red and feeling her energy coursing through him. Shiro lets Keith sleep in his bed for the entire next day, so it’s fine.

And if Keith counts every night he gets to spend with Shiro, he counts them with reverence and wonder, as if he’s counting the precious stars in the sky.

 

**Author's Note:**

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